360
by Timeloopy
Summary: What if the candidates aren't candidates for what we thought they were candidates for? An attempt at humor. . .very mild shippery. Jacob/JiYeon Set far in the future when Ji Yeon is grown-up and Jacob is her contemporary Not complimentary to Kate


_A/N: A guess as to how Lost will not end. I would be most appalled if it did indeed end this way. But my mind went there so I thought I'd take you there with me. For what it's worth, I'm actually rooting for Kate to be The Candidate no matter how unlikely it seems. But what if the candidates aren't what we thought at all?_

The waves crash as the beach is slowly eroded by the ocean. One loan figure stands on the beach, watching his world fall away. His sandy hair is lifted by the breeze and flutters showing the only sign of life around him. A cloud of smoke swirls overhead and the figure pays it no heed – his focus is the letter in his hand.

_Dear Jacob:_

_Although I may never see you again, I will cherish you always. Our love is the one constant left in the universe – as long as it endures – there is hope. As long as one of us lives, the other will never truly die. It will only end once, my love. Until then, you must never give up._

_I realize I have never told you what you need to know though - how the Smoke monster came to be. I don't know the details myself – what changes a man into a monster? What dark things must happen to erode all the good in a man's soul until all that is left is the black smoke from the fire that burned away his heart? But I know how he began and I share this with you - that some day you may stop him from becoming what he is or perhaps stop him from ever being born – whichever you think is best. _

_I knew his mother well – since I was just a child. I called her a friend although by the end I'm not sure she remembered that. With all that had happened to her, how could she not be stark raving mad by then? Perhaps, we were all a bit mad by then – it's hard to say. Her name was Katherine Austin. As I mentioned, I knew his mother well and knew that she did her best for him but being raised by a mad woman leaves it's mark. Perhaps, I knew his father as well._

_The problem, my dear Jacob, is that Kathryn (or Kate as we all called her) well, she got around a bit. Not just in the sense that she had a lot of , err, friends. But she also traveled through time. Time travel causes all sorts of problems and combined with Kate's tendency to uhm, make friends easily, well, the parentage becomes a bit murky. _

_I can narrow it down a little for you though. It's not as though you have to search through every man in existence through all of history. Let's see, there are 360 candidates. Not that she was friends with all 360 – goodness no. But you see, for a short period of time she was held prisoner by a brilliant fertility expert named Juliet Burke who was brought to the island to do fertility experiments. Another time traveler unfortunately. So, uhm, traveling through time – collecting specimens and the like. . . doing experiments. . .360 isn't that bad considering._

_I wish I could tell you how to fix all this. I wish I knew whether knowing his father would make a difference. Whether hanging onto his father would have kept his mother sane. Or even whether knowing the identity of his father . . .was what drove poor Kate mad to begin with._

_All I can tell you as I watch the smoke draw nearer, is that all this you see around you. . .this death. . .this destruction. . .this hell on earth? This was caused by the Smoke monster. And you're the only one left who can stop him. If you don't succeed, all this happens – if you can't change things – what you see before you is the result._

_Good luck my love. _

_Ji Yeon_

Jacob folds the letter and a tear rolls down his cheek washing away a clear trail from his dirty cheek. He doesn't wipe it away. He folds the list and tucks it into his pocket. He kneels in the sand as the water rolls in around his feet – before it washes even this last piece of his world away – and lays a hand on her grave – his Ji Yeon – his life. And he begins.


End file.
